On Sickness, New Toys, Games, and Resolutions

Hello again.

For those of you who have ever embarked on a period of extended or periodic writing, you know the trials of getting started.  There is an initial burst of activity and motivation, that quickly wanes.  It takes a dedicated support structure, a true passion, or pathological stubbornness to keep going.

Sometimes a combination of all three is what actually manifests.  We geeks are, if nothing else, variable complex critters.

Now a portion of the preceding was intended to make the following excuse seem less lame.  Part of the reason I have not posted anything in the last couple weeks is that I was ill for a significant portion of that time.  I do not get sick often, and it is even rarer for an illness to prompt me to take days off from work.  I should have gone to the doctor sooner than I did (the act of swallowing was uncomfortable or painful), as the prescribed penicillin helped in short order.

Quick tangent on the subject of medications.  If a doctor prescribes 10 days of treatment, take the entire regimen, especially when it comes to antibiotics.  There are few things in this world that are more dangerous than self-diagnosis.  Never stop taking prescribed medication just because you feel better.  If you do you are contributing to a possible world apocalypse.

Not kidding at all here.

And I told you this blog would be random at times.

On the subject of toys.  I recently received a long awaited gadget.  I backed a project on Indegogo some time ago for the AfterShokz Trekz Titanium headset.  This is a new Bluetooth headset designed for the active lifestyle (not even remotely why I backed it).  What caught my attention was the technology behind the product.  The headset uses bone conduction transducers, rather than traditional speakers to deliver sound to the listener.

Aside from simple curiosity, there were practical reasons behind my interest in the product.  One of my irritations with my previous headsets was that the in-ear nature of the speakers had the effect of blocking out nearly all of the ambient sound.  Now before anyone says, "Well, isn't that the point?",  I should clarify a couple things.  First, sometimes full environmental noise blockage or cancellation is a good thing, airline flights for example.  Second, for me at least there are far more situations where it is helpful to be able to listen to music AND be able hear the world around to.

First case in point.  Life in the big city.  For the active person in the big city, the daily run or bike ride and be a treacherous undertaking when one is unable to hear simple things like traffic.  Since the Trekz Titanium leaves the ear canal open, you will be able to hear the bus before it hits you. (Something that is of genuine concern if you don't have a Ring of Protection vs. Buses)

Second use case.  Throughout my technical career, I have found it to be essential to always have one ear open to what is going around the office.  In general it is the people who have the best grasp of the "big picture" who are able to do their jobs and contribute to the organization most effectively.    While this can be interpreted by some managers as a lack of focus, those same managers will likely not notice this because they are too busy being amazed by your unusually broad comprehension of operational subject matter.  In addition to leaving the ear open so I can hear what is going on, more people come to me with questions/discussions because it does not look like I am either on the phone or otherwise distracted.

If anyone is interested in getting a set of their own, you can pre-order via the link above.  For the tech geeks out there, here is a link to a specs page.

Games we have been playing:

The illness interrupted my game a day efforts for a bit.  Not too concerned yet as the goal was intended to be a New Year Resolution.  December is just practice.  Or at least that is what I am telling myself.

Takenoko:  Introduced this one to my son with a couple plays recently.  The basic concepts of moving toward specific objectives are within his grasp, so now it is just a matter of getting him to multitask, as with this game, you almost always need to be working towards a number of objectives at the same time.

Forbidden Island:  Wonderfully simple Co-op game.  Played this recently with my wife as a quick 2-player game (we won handily).  I need to get this out with my oldest son as well.  I am pretty sure he will have fun with it.

Poison: a Knizia classic.  Got this one out with my wife and son as well.  The basic mechanic is simply counting.  You put colored, numbered cards into cauldrons, with each able to hold cards totaling 13.  A player who exceeds that gets all of the cards in the cauldron.  You generally don't want cards, unless you have the most of a given color.  Poison cards are always bad.  My son can count, but the intricacies of strategy and planning are going to take time.  The wonderful thing about this game is that intricate strategy can quickly fall apart and backfire, allowing the simple approach to win, as my son found out when my game collapsed and he ended up winning.

Viticulture with Tuscany Expansion:  This is one of my personal favorites and by some measures one of the best worker placement games ever.  It has proven to be very popular at the weekly Meetup, so despite the weight I continue to regularly haul it with me.
Here is the list of expansion modules that are part of my Meetup play set:

• Mamas and Papas
• Advanced Visitors
• Properties
• Extended Board
• Structures
• New Visitors

Some things that I would like to do in future games.  First, I would like to pare down the stacks of visitor cards.  There have been a number of discussions on BoardGameGeek on matching the list in the Essentials edition of the game.  I like this idea.  Second, I would like to start using the special workers.  To date, I have avoided them as the additional rules would be too complex for new players (usually everyone at the table save me).   My efforts have been paying off in that I have been seeing repeat players at the table for a number of weeks now.  Now my be the time to turn up complexity just a bit more.

Gobblet: Classic abstract game from the Red Orange library.  We have both the Junior and regular version.  I have started playing the regular version with my 7 year old.  He is getting much better and is able to win about 1 out of 5 games.